WASHINGTON — Florida Sen. Marco Rubio has an explanation for the very public spat between President Trump and two of his GOP colleagues, Bob Corker of Tennessee and Jeff Flake of Arizona.

"The Republican Party is going through a moment of realignment internally, an internal debate about what the party is going to be about and what it’s going to represent in the years to come." Rubio told reporters Wednesday. "So is the Democratic Party. And, by the way, so is every institution in America. From higher education to the media, everyone is going through the exact same internal debate and that is what is our role and function in this new era, cultural, societal and economic.”

It sounds more like something a political science professor would say as opposed to someone, like Rubio, who traded personal insults with Trump on the presidential primary campaign trail last year. But Rubio has made peace with the president in recent months and has become an influential voice to Trump on foreign affairs and human rights.

So taking sides in the current intraparty feud is something neither Rubio nor many of his Republican colleagues seem interested in doing these days, especially as they try to pass a sweeping tax cut package. Rather, he spoke philosophically about the wave of frustration and anger that propelled Trump to the Oval Office:

“There’s a populist backlash that is both economic but also cultural. They are tired of being lectured to and told that their values are wrong, and not only wrong but they need to go away and be quiet. I think political correctness in this country went way too far and people got tired of it. And (Trump’s) become a vessel to respond to that. And that’s a real sentiment in our country that can’t be ignored. It manifested itself in this election. By the same token, we have to understand that a republic really can’t function unless there are some norms of behavior that are not legally prescribed or in the law. It’s just the way human beings should conduct themselves in interacting with one another. Everybody will handle it differently and I don’t always pass this test, but what do I try to do? I try to behave the way I think people in this position should behave. And model that behavior.”

"The notion that one should stay silent as the norms and values that keep America strong are undermined and as the alliances and agreements that ensure the stability of the entire world are routinely threatened by the level of thought that goes into 140 characters — the notion that one should say and do nothing in the face of such mercurial behavior is ahistoric and, I believe, profoundly misguided," he said.

Rubio, who traveled to Arizona earlier this month to raise money for Flake's re-election bid, described him Wednesday as a "high quality person, very principled." He's also stood up for Corker as someone of integrity.

Rubio serves with both senators on the Foreign Relations Committee.

And the Florida senator distanced himself from Trump's attacks by saying: "I don’t behave like the president. We’re different people. The president has a way of expressing himself and it’s appealed to a lot of very frustrated people.”

But Rubio also disagreed with Corker's insinuations that Trump is unfit for the office he holds.

"Do I believe he is? If I didn’t, I would say it," Rubio told reporters during a roundtable to promote his plan to expand a child tax credit. "That said, do I agree with every decision he makes? Of course not. And when I don’t, I've told him."

In an interview with CNN earlier Wednesday, Flake said he thinks most Republicans feel the way he does even if they won't say it.

Asked if not speaking up was tantamount to tolerating the president's approach and his sometimes caustic tweets, Rubio said no.

"Tolerating it is doing it yourself or celebrating it. I don't celebrate that stuff and I certainly don't try to model it," he said. "But I think sometimes — and I’m not criticizing Jeff — the best way to address those things is by modeling to people that there’s a different way to achieve the same thing."

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J. Scott Applewhite, AP

Trump shakes hands with Sen. John Barrasso alongside Rubio at a lunch with members of Congress on the Obamacare repeal legislation in the State Dining Room of the White House on July 19, 2017.
Michael Reynolds, European Pressphoto Agency

Rubio and Trump chat during a commercial break in the broadcast of the Republican primary debate on the campus of the University of Miami on March 10, 2016, in Coral Gables, Fla.
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Rubio gestures to the crowd as he arrives, followed by his daughters Amanda, 15, and Daniella, 13, at his primary night rally at the Radisson Hotel in Manchester, N.H., on Feb. 9, 2016.
Jacquelyn Martin, AP

Rubio greets supporters as he leaves the stage with his family at his campaign party in the Iowa Ballroom at the Marriott in downtown Des Moines on Iowa caucus night.
Rachel Mummey, The Des Moines Register

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Mary Schwalm, AP

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J. Scott Applewhite, AP